Chapter Seventy-Eight: A Full-Scale Mobilization

Joe sat alone atop the mountain, gazing idly at the carnage unfolding below. In a short span, more than a third of the northern coalition forces had already been annihilated. As for the bioweapons he had brought, apart from a few unlucky mosquitoes that were blown to pieces along with nearby comrades by stray shells, they remained virtually unscathed.

These tyrants and lickers, meticulously engineered by Donald, possessed alloy skeletons fused within their bodies. Their skins, steeped over time in moray eel blood, had undergone a defense-enhancing transformation under the influence of the zombie virus. These T-virus weapons now boasted formidable defensive capabilities; the gunpowder weapons wielded by the enemy could scarcely breach a tyrant’s hide. Only high-energy weaponry could inflict real harm upon these monsters.

Yet, to truly kill a tyrant, one had to launch a series of attacks against its head, tear through the alloy skull, and utterly crush the brain. It was abundantly clear the enemy was utterly incapable of this.

Within each of these bioweapons pulsed a small reactor, massively amplifying their speed and strength. Compared to Ye Hai’s tyrants and lickers, these killing machines before him were superior in both offense and defense.

When Joe had brought these creations down the mountain, he’d made an agreement with Ye Hai: once Teach and Nangong were satisfied with the show, a zombie crow would bring word, and Joe would withdraw, leaving the aftermath to the other taboo figures.

Yet Joe had already cast his gaze southward toward the Plati Black Market several times, but the anticipated zombie crow never came.

On his seventh glance over his shoulder, just as he was turning, a rustling from the woods behind him caught his attention.

Joe stood up, drawing the dagger from his boot, body tense.

“Who’s there?”

Three figures stepped out from the shadows. By the light of the moon, Joe recognized their faces, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes.

“Boss Sura, Boss Eric, Boss Daly… It’s been a long time… What brings you here? Out for a midnight stroll? Three grown men sneaking through the woods at this hour—it really does invite wild speculation.”

Sura was a bald, stout man; Eric, tall and gaunt; Daly, a white-haired blind man. If Ye Hai had been present, he might have thought Ke Zhen’e and the Fat-Thin Monks had wandered onto the wrong set.

These three were the respective heads of Sura’s Bullet Workshop to the north, Eric’s Homemade Explosives, and Daly’s Food Processing Plant. Joe had crossed paths with them before, and knew they were all, like Zera, second-stage mutants—existences he regarded as no more than ants. Yet the fact that all three had come together tonight put Joe on his guard.

In such circumstances, with both sides locked in battle, even a fool would realize these visitors meant no good.

Yet the trio bore no weapons, simply standing there, staring at Joe in silence. The scene was unnervingly bizarre.

Suddenly, Daly stepped forward, a faint smile curling his lips. His blind eyes snapped open, and to Joe’s shock, fissures opened from his eyes to his temples. From within those cracks, eight eyes—four large, four small—fixed upon Joe with a deadly gaze.

Seeing these grotesque eyes, Joe’s heart skipped a beat.

“Spider?”

In the next instant, all three opened their mouths wide. From each, a web shot forth, ensnaring Joe from three directions.

Joe reacted instantly, teleporting from his spot; in a blink, he was behind Daly. His dagger gleamed coldly as he drove it toward the back of Daly’s head.

He was about to strike home when, without warning, a spider leg burst through Daly’s back, its barbed tip lashing viciously at Joe’s heart.

Joe’s heart sank; he retreated at once.

No sooner had his feet touched the ground than two more spider legs attacked from either side—Sura and Eric joining the assault.

Driven by necessity, Joe darted away again, narrowly avoiding their attacks.

But just as he landed once more, the four spider legs protruding from Daly’s back whipped toward him in unison, unleashing four invisible blades of wind.

A searing pain shot through Joe’s limbs; in the next second, blood spattered as his wounds gaped to the bone.

Gritting his teeth against the agony, Joe rolled behind a large tree. The wounds began to heal rapidly, the T-virus in his veins working fast.

Yet before Joe could catch his breath, two streams of venom rained down from either side. Fortunately, his reflexes were sharp, and he darted aside just in time, causing Sura and Eric’s attacks to miss.

“How troublesome,” Joe muttered to himself. “Those invisible wind blades from Daly must be psionic… But Sura and Eric’s venom—psionic as well, or just spider attacks? Have they all been taken over by ART-2? This is turning into a real headache…”

“I’d better retreat and come up with a plan,” Joe thought, and immediately began to withdraw into the dense forest.

He had full confidence in his speed—surely, three ART-2 altered beings couldn’t outpace him.

But within seconds, Joe realized his mistake.

He looked up to find the entire forest thick with webs, their stickiness and resilience astonishing. It took him more than ten seconds to sever a single strand with his alloy dagger.

The webs quivered ominously. When Joe turned, he saw Daly now fully transformed into a spider, perched on the web, eyes locked on him. Sura and Eric circled, weaving an enormous, snowy web that quickly fenced Joe in.

In the next instant, Joe was ensnared, trapped amidst layer upon layer of spider silk…

…

“So this is the point of no return—the forbidden zone!” Rakan remarked, his face twisted with a strange, unhealthy grin as he gazed at the undertakers’ laboratory before him. “What a terrifying place.”

Bell snickered. “Doesn’t seem all that impressive to me!”

Hu Kong followed behind the two, quietly observing his “companions.” According to instructions from the Waterman of the Psionic Union, the three of them had quickly slipped away from their unit after the battle began, using the chaos to sneak into the forbidden zone.

Looking at the pitch-dark buildings ahead, Hu Kong had no desire to complicate matters. He said, “As Waterman instructed, let’s head straight for the core, confirm the target in the photograph, and be done with it. This place isn’t our concern. Let’s move!”

Unlike Rakan and Bell, Hu Kong’s mind remained unaffected by the psionic waterdroplets. Still, their objectives aligned, and the two taboos, their thinking abilities gradually fading, made excellent shields. So, Hu Kong chose to stick with them.

At the mention of Waterman, a flicker of struggle passed through Rakan’s eyes, but he quickly descended into a feverish state once more.

“Mr. Hu Kong, wait just a moment. I’ll break this place open in no time! Then we can continue on.”

None of the three seemed to notice the tendrils already reaching out from the house, snaking subtly toward them, masked by withered branches and decaying leaves scattered across the ground.